Game 25 - Feb 8 - Illinois St.

[kochrab]

Still stunned. Beautiful, raucous night. Yay students for showing up. Yay staff for motivating them. Yay team for rewarding them. As Ben said first thing on the postgame interview, let’s fill McLeod Tuesday.

I loved seeing a bunch of the team go over to the student section and celebrate with them at the end. That was a cool moment. I really hope more students keep showing up.

[BCPanther]

3 games clear of 5th place with 6 to go.

Fantastic shape. Let's finish big.

[Purrrrrfect]

In my mind...of course the next game is always first and most important..but i think the season and confidence boosting for the guys are the two away game at Murray and Belmont. We just can't crack the code consistently with those two and seeing as we struggle away from home and where they sit on the schedule makes it a huge swing for the final push.

Just to assume we lose to Drake and @ Bradley and beat ISUb and UIC, we'd be 12-6 without those two...but where they fall could be big. 11-4, lose both and you are 11-6, reeling with drake coming in, in 3rd or 4th place likely. Lose that game with a tough UIC game on senior night and @ Bradley to end the season....be a tough mentally for any team and be limping into STL.

I honestly think those 2 games will define if we are top 3 or 6th. Just a thought for chewing on for me.

[PantherAlum09]

I really hope we enjoy and appreciate this athletic and marketing department. These guys won’t be here for long if they keep doing the great things they’ve done so far. Let’s keep rewarding the staff and athletes with these growing attendance numbers.

[CyCarp]

I wasn't able to catch this one, will have to check it out when I have some time. One semi-concerning thing is minutes. We have no depth right now and all our starters played 30+ minutes last night. Maybe it was more of a matchup thing, but we have to get some quality minutes from other guys at some point.

[BCPanther]

I wasn't able to catch this one, will have to check it out when I have some time. One semi-concerning thing is minutes. We have no depth right now and all our starters played 30+ minutes last night. Maybe it was more of a matchup thing, but we have to get some quality minutes from other guys at some point.

There isn't anybody else to give minutes to. Tytan isn't leaving the floor outside of foul trouble so it's hard to get Pock anything extra because he just can't defend on the wing.

We're just going to have to roll with it, unfortunately.

[Wxcpanther]

There isn't anybody else to give minutes to. Tytan isn't leaving the floor outside of foul trouble so it's hard to get Pock anything extra because he just can't defend on the wing.

We're just going to have to roll with it, unfortunately.

Plus with Walker being out there we really couldn't go to Hornseth as much. Pock could get more run if we go small ball Tytan at the 5, but I agree, they won't be out there at the same time. It would be great if we could get Redek more minutes with the lack of guard depth, but his communication defensively is really lacking. Teams just screen him and get open look after open look. All things considered, the fact we are just now getting to this tight of a rotation now that we are down a 2nd starter speaks to how well the staff did at filling out this group. Not many teams would still have this much depth and ability losing 2 starters.

[orangetennis]

Keep reducing Pock's minutes. Maybe he'll jump in the portal at season's end.
I was excited when we got him, but he's not a Valley level player.

[BCPanther]

Keep reducing Pock's minutes. Maybe he'll jump in the portal at season's end.
I was excited when we got him, but he's not a Valley level player.

He's perfectly serviceable for 5-10 minutes a game and is a great leader in practice.

Every program needs a Kyle Pock.

[06panther10]

Keep reducing Pock's minutes. Maybe he'll jump in the portal at season's end.
I was excited when we got him, but he's not a Valley level player.

I still think there is something there, he is a very talented player with great size. I hope he finds his way.

[7YrsOfCollegeDownTheDrain]

I like what Pock brings really - his effort is always great even if he has some limitations. He defends and communicates, does what's asked of him. He's in a spot where there aren't a ton of minutes available to him due to the guys in front of him and he has to play the 3/4 spot from a matchup standpoint. I feel with more minutes his shot would go down more. when you take one or two shots a game it's hard it's not a great sample to judge on. i think his shooting mechanics look really clean and the shot always looks good coming out of his had. given more volume the results would probably be better. i agree with a prior poster, I think he could be valuable as a small 5 at the point of the offense as you can't leave him or sag.

It's been so long since we've had a team attack the basket the way this one which is great because we're not locked in to needing to make a ton of 3's to win. If the effort on D stays the way it's been the last few games we have a solid chance at arch madness. We're never going to play in the 50's like we used to due to the pace we play O at but we still need to defend at an elite level and keep teams in the 60s. Looking forward to Tuesday vs ISUb and then the Drake homegame...hopefully big energetic crowds at both. It would be great to beat drake before the tourney.

[MVCBeat]

We’ve won a number of games this year most UNI teams since 2016 wouldn’t have won. It has been frustrating at times, but more fun than frustrating finally coming out on top in some of these types of games.

If we win on Tuesday, we’ll be sitting very pretty heading into a very tough final five games.

[BCPanther]

94% of a bye with a better chance to finish 2nd than 4th according to Hacksaw this morning.

We're in a great spot.